Nintendo

Sony

Microsoft

Other

Mario & Luigi Dream Team; All about the Battle Ring

In Mario & Luigi Dream Team, there is an optional area in the game called the Battle Ring that can be entered via a Dream Point in Pi’illo Castle. It’s a boss rush like the Gauntlet in the last game, and lets you fight the various normal and giant bosses again with a limited number of turns and items. Here’s some information about it.

How to Access the Battle Ring

From the entrance of Pi’illo Castle, go north through the door behind Broque Monsieur, then through the first door to the right. Choose to enter the Battle Ring by stepping up to the boxing ring style structure in the middle of the ring.

About the Battle Ring Format

When you first enter, you’ll notice that there are two options. Normal Battles have you go against ‘regular’ bosses you’ve faced before, the ones fought in traditional RPG battles. These have you use the usual Bros Attacks and abilities, as well as the stats you have in the main adventure mode.

The other option here lets you replay Giant Battles. These are tougher versions of the Giant Luigi bosses you fought earlier, albeit with slight differences that I’ll explain later. Obviously, your stats make absolutely no difference here, and the fights work just like they did in the first time round (with touch screen and gyroscope controls).

So those are the two options. But there are some other things you need to consider.

For starters, each battle now has a turn limit. Run out of turns, and you automatically lose. This is true of both normal and giant bosses.

Secondly, your badge meter is set to zero for normal battles. This means you won’t be immediately able to do things like recover health, boost your attack power or stun enemies, hence can’t ‘grind’ for badge effects before taking on the Boss Medley.

Another difference here is that bosses have much higher health than before, as well as higher stats in general. So while they’re still doable right after fighting them the first time, the game recommends the bros being about ten levels higher than they were for the first encounter with said opponent.

There are also secret bosses fought at the end of the ‘medley’ challenges (aka the ‘defeat all bosses in order without dying’ ones). These have no speech or impact on the storyline, and are usually much tougher than anything fought in the main adventure.

Finally, some bosses have different attack orders and patterns. This will be explained more clearly later.

Paying for Refights

Until you defeat a boss, you’ll be charged a certain amount of coins to face it down in battle. After this, the boss can be refought for free as many times as you wish.

The Boss List

Normal Bosses

The first mode is like the Gauntlet in the last game, and has you fight a variety of ‘standard’ bosses from the main game.

This is much, much harder than in the main game. Why? Because Dreambert heals you a bit less this time around, and Antasma’s speed seems to have been increased to a ridiculous level, meaning that you’re forced to dodge at least one attack right away unless your speed is above the 200-250 mark.

Also, keep in mind that if you fall asleep… your attack for that turn is skipped entirely. So while you do thankfully get given the ‘first serve’ directly after you wake up, this battle can easily be more akin to ‘beat Antasma in 7 turns’ rather than ‘beat him in 14 turns’ like as advertised.

No, you didn’t read that wrong, Bowser Jr makes a surprise appearance as the secret final boss in the main mode of the Battle Ring! This time around though, he’s a lot tougher, so here’s how to beat him.

First up, before you even think about dodging his attacks, realise that he has a very annoying ability shared with Bowser X from Bowser’s Inside Story. Namely that after you use a special attack on him, he goes up to you, steals it and stops you using it until you attack his Koopa Clown Car later in the fight. So don’t spam all your powerful attacks right away, unless you want a very painful battle of attrition. However, you can always use that badge effect to freeze time, since that will stop him countering your Bros Attacks (or attacking in general) for about three turns and hence let you use your favourites multiple times in a row.

As far as attacks go, here are his attacks:

He summons a Bob-omb, which races around in circles. Make Mario and Luigi jump over it to avoid damage, while avoiding the fireballs he shoots at random times (he only shoots a fireball at a time the Bob-omb is approaching the other brother, so you can dodge both the bomb and fireball by making both bros jump at the same time)

He gets some Shy Guys to come out with a rope made of fire (think Hot Rope Jump from Mario Party or the Border Jump from Superstar Saga). Make Mario or Luigi jump the rope as it passes them.

Bowser Jr throws a spiked ball in the air, which you have to counter with your hammers and pass between bros. He then charges with his clown car, so you’ll have to time it so the spike ball and clown car are both hit at the same time to avoid damage. Finally, you have to hammer him when he pops his head out the flipped car to avoid him breathing fire and one bro taking damage.

He gets out his clown car and summons some Shy Guys with packages. These contain either healing items, nothing or a bomb. Try and hope Bowser Jr gets the bomb.

The final attack is the key here, since he leaves the clown car unattended. Use a jump at it to hop in, then toss your Bros Attacks at him to get them back.

This guy fights mostly the same as he does in the main game. See the Boss Guide for info on how to beat him.

If you’re playing in Hard Mode, the changes made to the battle set up carry over to this one. And you have to do every attack and counter attack perfectly.

2. Mount Pajamaja X

Turns allowed: 13 (Normal Mode), 11 (Hard Mode)

This guy fights mostly the same as he does in the main game. See the Boss Guide for info on how to beat him.

3. Earthwake X

Turns allowed: 10

This guy fights mostly the same as he does in the main game. See the Boss Guide for info on how to beat him.

He does do more damage though, so I hope you can dodge that flying hammer attack more easily…

If you’re playing in Hard Mode, same changes found in the first battle carry over to here. Turn limit stays the exact same)

4. Zeekeeper X

Turns allowed: 6 (Normal Mode), 4 (Hard Mode)

This guy fights mostly the same as he does in the main game. See the Boss Guide for info on how to beat him.

In Hard Mode, battle changes made carry over to the battle ring version. You also have only 4 turns to beat him.

5. Bowser X (giant Bowser)

Turns allowed: 6

Price: 400 coins

Bowser on the other hand, surprisingly DOESN’T fight much like he does in the main game. You see, while the first time around you had quite a few turns to use and the battle gradually got more difficult as you went on, Bowser X uses his most powerful attacks and combos right off the bat, and shuffles many others around too.

For one thing, the platform you jump to with the castle isn’t next to the starting one, but literally just past a tiny vertical gap behind it. So he doesn’t speak and jumps straight there once two turns have past.

When he does get to the castle platform, his attack pattern is an interesting mix of the first and second ones instead of the one used in the main game. Here are the changes made:

Two groups of Shy Guys attack with spears in the first ‘castle’ phase instead of one, like in the second ‘encounter’.

Four Shy Guy airship attacks are launched, like in the second ‘encounter’. Two horizontal, two vertical.

He leaves the meat eating until right at the end, after the Shy Guy Airship attacks.

And while the next platform is much the same (with Luigi jumping to avoid Bowser’s fire breath), the battle never resets to the first attack phase, skipping straight to the Big Bully style arena fight instead. This is because the battle only gives you six turns to win, not enough to waste time with repeats of the earlier attack patterns.

Finally, the end part (with the Star Driver special attack) is different, having a new fireball dodging pattern that goes like this:

Fireball shoots to the left

Fireball appears to shoot to the right, but changes course as you get there

Four fireballs appear and you have to go through the middle

I haven’t done this part yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the only fireball sequence you had to dodge at all. This is because you only get exactly two turns to finish Giant Bowser off, so the pattern has been simplified to match this.

In fact, I don’t think the game really thought too hard about whether people would have trouble here, since the battle literally ends at random between dodging Bowser’s third counter attack and Luigi getting to move.

So it’s a bit different than before.

In Hard Mode… it’s much like it is in the normal Hard Mode battle, complete with no meat based healing ‘attack’ in phase 2 and a similar pattern of fireballs to dodge with Star Driver. Turn limit stays the same.

6. Unknown (presumably in Boss Medley)

I’ll add info on whatever this last secret boss might be when I get to it.